


look, look

by Askance



Category: Justified
Genre: Background Relationships, Character Study, Experimental Style, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 13:46:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5588215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askance/pseuds/Askance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How they hate you, all of them, when all you want is for someone to see you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	look, look

Holy-roller! How your daddy hates you and your come-down-Moses, your tell-it-on-the-mountain. Can't see the light of God in your eyes no matter how hard you press them to shine. Look, Daddy, look at your good man. But he just sees you _in-the-way,_ like you're fifteen and troublesome, no good hand on the football team, nothin' like your brother: piece of dirt dragged in on Daddy's shoes. How big your daddy is, holy-roller. How like a mountain that ought to be toppled by now. His big boasting American-flag button-down, how he hates you. Daddy, look, you say with your Godly eyes, look at these men, I am still of your world but in my own way, I'm become myself! After twenty years of coal dust and reefer and Mama's absence tornado-huge there's a little something of a real man way down in you like a crick in the valley of the holler that swells with rain. Look at me! 

 

Please, Daddy, look at me.

 

Holy-roller, how your daddy hates you and your Molotov cocktail, your mission and your preachin'. Big man but ain't big enough to beat you himself. You have a better Father and he's  _jealous._ Green monster in your holy woods. How your daddy hates you. How he lies dead on the dusty earth and hates you still.

* * *

 

Coal-miner! How your mountain hates you and your vein-seeker hands that know all her vibrations. Hates to be figured by someone as downtrodden as you. There would be a certain justice in her burying you alive, choking you out like a canary, as there is no one to bury you. (Not even Raylan.) Little dust-speck, you are. Swallowed all your charisma and your fancy words 'longside the iron liquor you mourned your daddy with. How big your mountain is, coal-miner, how easily you could get lost and die inside her, fill her womb with your skinny body. Never mind the dancing or sweet Ava in her house. All you ever eat now is your sadness. Going under the black rocks with half a mind to fall asleep there in the poison air. The sun too bright when you come back up to distinguish from Ava's golden hair. She doesn't look at you half enough. You're collecting exploded pieces of your soul down there but none are so shiny yet to be worth showing her. I am trying to be good. Look at me!

 

Coal-miner, how the whole of the county hates you, and her peaks besides, rumbling angry at the touch of your vein-seeker hands, and Ava still hating you in her own deep way; how they hate you, former Somebody. How the mountain lies dead in the green hills, black and rotted, spitting you up with the sun.

* * *

 

Outlaw! How your people hate you, how you drive them away with their hands full of pills and their hearts full of fear and  _come back_ is not enticement enough to bring them to love you. Love me, love me. (Love me, you grind into the telephone, hoping Raylan can hear it in your white teeth, as it is all you've ever wanted from him. Way he used to sweet-talk you in the back of your very own truck, coal dust sticky on his face. Stupid boys, nineteen.) Once upon a time in a church he looked at you like he almost wanted to know you. Once upon a time you saved his rotten life. Won't look at you like that, not anymore. Tired of your inconstancy, your pendulum, swingin' like lights in the shaft, here one minute, shot the next—now dope, now whores, where'd you go? Can't find the crick no more nor them Godly eyes in the mirror— _look at me, Raylan._

 

Please, Raylan, look at me.

 

I know I'm in here somewhere if only you'll point to the spot.

 

Outlaw, how you hate the bullet scar in your chest, just far enough from your heart not to kill you, how you want to reach in and dig him out, dig all of them out. Cough him up like black dust from your lungs. Spit him into the palm of your hand and be done with him. Outlaw! Here's your world: it's small and sad and though you claim to know how to live in it you have not lived since you gave up God. But for him:  _him_ : only tether of memory you've got. How his smile lies dead and hates you for its passing.

* * *

 

Jailbird. How these walls hate you. How you waste your one-a-day phone call sending electric vibrations towards Florida, how you've come to dread the dial tone, the voice tellin' you to leave it. How you're preachin' more to feel the hand of God than to save anyone's soul. Ain't waitin' on deliverance no more. Just waitin' on that phone call.

 

You're forgetting, and you need him to remind you, that once upon a time you dug coal together, that you saved his rotten life and kissed him in a secret place. Everyone here keeps their eyes down 'round you. 

 

Please, anyone, look at me.

 

You've got nothin'. No Ava, no Raylan, no God in the coal, no mountain, no hate. Waitin' to die in your sleep. One day if you get out of this place you'll go directly to him, no questions asked: whether to fall on your knees in hopes of forgiveness or to shoot him dead, no one knows, least of all you. Jailbird, you ain't ever gettin' out, but you dream.

 

You are the loneliest man who ever did live. If only he'd come peer through the glass and maybe laugh a little. Just look at you. You wouldn't ask for more.

 

How your soul lies dead in your mouth. Waiting. Waiting.

 


End file.
